Ernst deserves commendation

For Iowa’s junior U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst, Republican from Red Oak, the military has always been a priority among her legislative interests. As an Iowa native officeholder, she’s also supported protections and enhancements for production agriculture, of course. 

But she served in the military for 23 years, first in the Army Reserve and then in the Iowa Army National Guard, from which she retired as a lieutenant colonel. Her Army career played a major role in who she is today, and what commands her lawmaking attention.

Consequently Ernst was key to the momentum of two important bills in Congress this summer.

The first deals with how sexual assault in the military is to be handled. Traditionally, such accusations go up through the chain of command. The commander of the unit in which the accusation arises decides whether it is justified and therefore whether it deserves to be prosecuted.

In the past few years, the number of alleged sexual abuse incidents in the military has expanded significantly, while the percentage of successful prosecutions has dropped. In 2018, there were over 21,000 sexual abuse allegations, while the number of prosecutions declined by 10 percent. Only 7 percent of alleged perpetrators were eventually found guilty.

Sen. Ernst, herself a sexual abuse victim in college, had initially supported retaining the prosecution responsibility within the chain of command. But as she told the Washington Examiner this past May, “We haven’t seen a decrease at all in sexual assaults across the ranks. This was my wake-up moment ... To do the same thing over and over again, if it’s not working, we’ve got to make changes.”

So Ernst, to her credit, changed direction and joined the years-long effort of New York Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand to remove commanders from the decision-making process in determining whether to prosecute serious alleged crimes in the military, including sexual assault.

Instead, specially trained military prosecutors would decide whether a case goes to trial, rather than a service member’s direct commander.

The bipartisan bill, now supported by two-thirds of the Senate, would also add new prevention measures, such as better training for commanders and improved physical security measures.

Gillibrand and Ernst’s bill — the Military Justice Improvement and Increasing Prevention Act — has earned the crucial support of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley. The two female senators have lobbied their colleagues hard and successfully over the past several weeks.

The question now is whether the bill should go directly to the Senate floor on its own or as part of the broader defense authorization bill. But there’s no question it has overwhelming support in the chamber, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says it will pass in the House as well. 

It would be surprising if the bill does not become law this fall after the August recess is over.

The other bill for which Sen. Ernst took a leading role was the bipartisan effort to protect Afghan civilian allies of the United States who provided significant translation and other important logistical support to the U.S. military mission in Afghanistan.

The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan this summer, ending America’s 20-year war in that theater, the nation’s longest in history, puts those civilians who helped us in jeopardy at the hands of the Taliban and their supporters. Having served as a combat support unit commander in Kuwait and Iraq, Ernst is well aware of the moral obligation the United States owes those who help its overseas wartime efforts.

So she and Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire took the lead roles in their respective parties in the Senate to push the Afghan Allies Protection Act to its successful conclusion. The bill sailed through Congress with near unanimity and was signed into law by President Biden last Friday.

The act includes an Afghan special immigrant visa program, increasing the number of authorized visas by 8,000. It broadens eligibility for our Afghan allies and, importantly, provides special immigrant status for many surviving spouses and children of murdered applicants.

The act, of course, can’t atone for how the U.S. abandoned similar civilian allies after we exited Vietnam and the Kurdish areas of Iraq and Syria. But it appears to show that we now realize what we owe to those who go into harm’s way to help us. And it may help to persuade others to help us in similar situations in the future.

Sen. Ernst’s leadership in both the military sexual abuse bill and the Afghan allies bill was crucial. Her judgment deserves commendation.